February 8 2022 tailscale, adsbexchange.com, TensorFlow, stepper motors
Brian shared a problem he was having with tailscale which uses WireGuard; he had tried to transmit out to a network but it did not work. In Spain he can only watch the BBC on his computer but he can use Vivaldi to cast his desktop to the TV; in this way, he can log in to the BBC and then cast the programme to the TV.
He would like to put tailscale on the router to transmit out but tailscale doesn’t like having the same IP subnets in Spain and in the UK; tailscale works fine when setting up a subnet using UDP in other contexts.
David suggested that he use WireGuard rather than tailscale with UDP on port 51820 in a client/server type arrangement where the ‘server’ is the known IP address and the ‘client’ is the unknown IP address.
However, because both the system in Spain and the one in the UK are carrier grade NAT, tailscale is effectively acting as a ‘server’ to two ‘clients.’ Where there are two carrier grade NATs to get through, a tailscale subnet is supposed to allow you to push things out on the network.
David suggested that Brian might use Docker which works fine for him but Brian’s experience has been that nothing works with Docker.
Brian mentioned that, as the w key on his mechanical keyboard was not not working, he had taken it apart and now it works. He just has to put it together again.
Darren mentioned his need for a new strap for his Casio watch and was recommended a NATO watchstrap to replace his Casio strap.
David recommended adsbexchange.com for a view of the current international situation; press U on the top right hand side for military planes and zoom out on the bottom right hand side to see more aircraft. David had seen Emanuel Macron’s flight along with various US military aircraft including a US Galaxy over Budapest. He had also seen a Swedish Bombardier outside Kaliningrad along with Latvian aircraft around the Belorussian and Russian border, a UK RC135 that went to Crimea all day and NATO AWACS aircraft over the North Sea, Poland and the Mediterranean. Brian noticed a Czech military plane on its way from Seville.
David said that it works by tracking responders — which the Russians don’t turn on. People use a Linux stack to track them and then upload the results.
Darren shared his experiences of TensorFlow, a really trendy program which uses Python and which the OU have made boring. He has to use the university GPU which has 12GB RAM; the exercise comprised 100 Scotsmen, 50 of whom have bagpipes; he has to take a photograph of each of the groups and tell the machine which is which; then he tells the Scotsmen to swap bagpipes and the program can tell which Scotsmen are playing bagpipes. David commented that learning something like TensorFlow has real earning potential.
Darren went on to describe how, by using neural nets, you could find things in the middle, such as deep fakes, through deep learning from hidden layers of neural nets.
Bernard has been investigating stepper motors to use to move his telescope to follow the rotation of the earth such as the Inverntech NEMA 17 Stepper Motor, which needs a regulated current, the A4988 which does micro steps and has an inbuilt current regulator and the DVR8825 which allows even finer control. There are more expensive options with more facilities and greater resolution; so you need to plan exactly what to go for.
David has encountered a problem with his 3D printer which meant that he could not demonstrate what he had planned to; he had printed some new feet for the printer but, after fitting them, the printer doesn't work any more. He has no idea why; the LED lights up but the display does not; he will probably get a new board as that would work better.
The meeting concluded with references from Bernard to the Alien Autopsy comedy starring Ant and Dec, from Brian to the Rita series and from John to the attempt by two men to take a corpse into a post office to claim his pension.
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